Radical Acts of Cultivation: Ecological Utopianism and Genetically Modified Organisms in Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation (original) (raw)
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Nature as a totem, “GMOs” as a contemporary taboo
North American Journal of Psychology, 2016
The rejection of so-called “Genetically Modified Organisms” by its opponents sometimes shows interesting underlying psychological mechanisms. The integrity of Nature, allegedly jeopardized by certain biotechnological methods used for agricultural purposes, looks like a totem, and tinkering with the DNA is seen as violating a taboo; images and feelings of purity in danger may arise. Most “traditional” taboos are well defined, but “GMOs” are a pseudo-subject, because the border between recombinant DNA organisms and other biotechnological processes is blurred, mixed and moving: confusion is added to arbitrariness. A sort of para-religious attitude is evident in several “anti-GMO” calls, with aggressive tones. Believers in the “GMO” taboo, as is common in intolerant religions, not only avoid the objects of their repugnance, but want to force everyone to do so: they too often succeed,as recombinant DNA crops are frequently forbidden by law, denying freedom of choice to producers and consumers.
The GMO Quandary and What It Means for Social Philosophy
Agricultural crops developed using the tools of genetic engineering (so-called " GMOs ") have become socially institutionalized in three ways that substantially compromise the inherent potential of plant transformation tools. The first is that when farming depends upon debt finance, farmers find themselves in a competitive situation such that efficiency-enhancing technology fuels a trend of bankruptcy and increasing scale of production. As efficiency increasing tools, GMOs are embedded in controversial processes of social change in rural economies. The United States, at least, has chosen not to undertake policy interventions to slow or reverse this trend. The second institutionalization of GMOs is found in the way that agricultural science has become divided between two camps, one focused on efficiency and total global production, the other focused on maintaining soil and water ecosystems in the face of both population growth and climate change. GMOs have been strongly supported by the first camp and regarded as irrelevant (at best) to the goals of the second. Finally, GMOs have become symbolic markers in the global debate over neoliberal institutions for trade and the protection of intellectual property. While there may be agronomic arguments for favoring GMO technology, the way that it has become situated in each of these social debates insures that it will be subject to strong opposition without regard to its biological risks and potential benefits. W hat I am calling " the GMO quandary " is a complex set of conceptually and empirically related issues, each of which might be debated at length on philosophical grounds. The GMO quandary is a wicked problem 1 in that important values are at stake, factual issues are shrouded in uncertainty, options for moving forward are mutually exclusive and have irreversible consequences, but there is no fundamental agreement on what the problem is. The acronym GMO stands for 'genetically modified organism,' but as many have pointed out, this phrase is potentially meaningless in the context of agriculture. Delimiting the scope of the
The sticky materiality of neo-liberal neonatures: GMOs and the agrarian question
This article uses Marxist theories of agrarian capitalism to explore the political economy of genetically modified organisms (GMO) agriculture. It argues that the successes and failures of GMO agriculture have been partly circumscribed by the structural requirements of the capitalist system, as well as by the materiality of GMO crops themselves. Successful innovations have been able to mitigate the material barriers to accumulation found in agricultural production, and thus appeal directly to farmers as comparatively profitable capital inputs. In this way, they cohere with David Goodman’s notion of appropriationism, where manufactured capital inputs (such as pesticides, machinery and fertilisers) replace ‘natural’ inputs (such as manure or draft animals), reducing labour time and biological contingency, and thus creating a competitive advantage for those farmers who adopt the new technology (at least temporarily). Conversely, innovations that are geared at consumers rather than farmers have largely failed due to their status as value-added products (whose value is subjective and market-driven) rather than capital goods. The article uses contrasting case studies of herbicide-tolerant soybeans, beta-keratin-enhanced rice and slow-ripening tomatoes to demonstrate how and why the structural imperatives of global capitalism have enabled the success of some, and the failure of other innovations.
Genetically modified organisms in agriculture have become objects of contention, crystallizing some of today’s major political and social controversies. As human-made objects that are alive and have agency, they invite the anthropologist to follow their trajectories and to analyze the power relationships and political economies of meaning in which they are inscribed. Taking as a point of departure Hans Jonas’s principle of responsibility for the unknown effects of technological developments, this article questions why a culture of urgency is attached to GMOs in spite of the unpredictable consequences that may arise when they are set free into the environment. As naturally reproducing objects that have intellectual property rights attached to them they raise issues of political governance and of economic power and control. They provoke not only repertoires of contention but also silences that speak about the link between technology and policy in contemporary societies.
The post-political and the end of nature: the case of the GMO
The Post-Political and Its Discontents: Spaces of Depoliticization, Spectres of Radical Politics, edited by Japhy Wilson and Erik Swyngedouw
In this chapter we explore the specific constellation of technology, politics and economics that seemed to take hold at the end of the twentieth century, through the story of a technology that was emblematic of the period – the genetically modified organism (GMO) as deployed in agricultural biotechnology. We first lay the grounds for this story by setting out the theoretical resources we will draw upon, including the recent political philosophy of the post-political, debates in science and technology studies (STS) about the democratisation of science, and Carl Schmitt’s theory of neutralisation and depoliticisation. We then consider the political-economic and cultural context which shaped the emergence of biotechnology in general and GM crops in particular, a context hidden behind narratives of neutral, autonomous and inevitable technological progress. We then tell the story of the ‘release’ of the GMO onto the public stage in three acts. Firstly we explore how the attempt to establish the orderly governance of the GMO was characterised by a purely technical and biophysical framing. Secondly, we see how this technicist neutral ground disintegrated, and forms of politics and resistance erupted within and around it. Thirdly, we explore how counter-moves took place to try to establish a new neutral ground in choice, consensus and coexistence. We conclude by speculating what wider implications we can draw from the story of the GMO for the relationship between technology and politics in the twenty first century.
Nature as a Totem, "Genetically Modified Organisms" as a Contemporary Taboo
North American Journal of Psychology, 2016
The rejection of so-called “Genetically Modified Organisms” by its opponents sometimes shows interesting underlying psychological mechanisms. The integrity of Nature, allegedly jeopardized by certain biotechnological methods used for agricultural purposes, looks like a totem, and tinkering with the DNA is seen as violating a taboo; images and feelings of purity in danger may arise. Most “traditional” taboos are well defined, but “GMOs” are a pseudo-subject, because the border between recombinant DNA organisms and other biotechnological processes is blurred, mixed and moving: confusion is added to arbitrariness. A sort of para-religious attitude is evident in several “anti-GMO” calls, with aggressive tones. Believers in the “GMO” taboo, as is common in intolerant religions, not only avoid the objects of their repugnance, but want to force everyone to do so: they too often succeed, as recombinant DNA crops are frequently forbidden by law, denying freedom of choice to producers and consumers.
The Anthropology of Genetically Modified Crops
Annual Review of Anthropology, 2010
By late in the twentieth century, scientists had succeeded in manipulating organisms at the genetic level, mainly by gene transfer. The major impact of this technology has been seen in the spread of genetically modified (GM) crops, which has occurred with little controversy in some areas and with fierce controversy elsewhere. GM crops raise a very wide range of questions, and I address three areas of particular interest for anthropology and its allied fields. First are the political-economic aspects of GM, which include patenting of life forms and new relationships among agriculture, industry, and the academy. Second is the wide diversity in response and resistance to the technology. Third is the much-debated question of GM crops for the developing world. This analysis is approached first by determining what controls research agendas and then by evaluating actual impacts of crops to date.